


To the Moon (and Back)

by speccygeekgrrl



Series: even the mistakes aren't really mistakes at all [5]
Category: Mystery Science Theater 3000
Genre: Gen, Graduation, Slow Burn, baby mad scientist, obliviousness in so many directions, really poorly hidden crushes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-25
Updated: 2017-04-25
Packaged: 2018-10-24 02:00:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10731816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/speccygeekgrrl/pseuds/speccygeekgrrl
Summary: The night Kinga graduates from college, inspiration hits her eye like a big pizza pie. Is that amore? Max is pretty sure it's amore for him, anyways.





	To the Moon (and Back)

**Author's Note:**

> I'm still having a lot of feels here. There will be at least two more stories in this series. I'm trying to fill in backstory while developing the feels... I hope I'm doing a decent job of it.

By the time she finished her undergrad degree in Chemistry, Kinga had a much better idea of how she wanted to do what every Forrester does: attempt to take over the world. She thought that actually ruling the entire world sounded like a lot too much work, and Max definitely did agree with her on that. After all, she was a scientist and Max wasn't too dumb to understand climate change and the world seemed to be getting... well, less and less like something they wanted to run, if they were going to get it with all these huge problems in effect. Kinga had the ambition of a Forrester with the mindset of a millennial, so rather than distastefully forceful methods of world domination, she turned her overactive imagination toward the realm of media instead. 

They were out celebrating the night she graduated, sitting on the patio at her favorite restaurant, and she was on her third appletini when her gaze drifted from his face to the sky above him and her eyes widened. "Max... do you know of any mad scientists with a claim on the moon?"

"The moon? Uh... not off the top of my head," he answered, tilting his head far enough back to see what she saw: the not-quite-full moon wreathed in wispy clouds. "The moon's too obvious. Everyone can see it."

"Everyone can see one side of it," she corrected him. "There's a whole other side that you can never see from Earth."

"That's... that's true," he said. "It's got to be insanely expensive to build a moon base, though. No one's ever done it."

"No one's done it _yet_ ," she said with relish. "I have a secret weapon, though."

"Uh... you don't have _any_ weapons, Kinga."

"Not a literal weapon, nitwit. I can borrow my grandmother's lackey to get stuff from Earth to the moon without sending it up in rockets."

"Pearl would let you do that?"

"Who cares? Brain Guy likes me. And he likes appletinis as much as I do."

"Getting a telepath tipsy and having them send tons of stuff to a different planet sounds... I don't know, injudicious?"

"Obviously the drinks would be after the heavy lifting," she said, rolling her eyes. "Hey, how are you at mixing cocktails, anyways?"

"There's a reason we always go out for drinks," he said dryly. "But I'm sure I could learn to make appletinis if it would make you happy."

"It would keep overhead costs down." 

"Would that make you happy?" She narrowed her eyes at him and he grinned at her, acting more oblivious than he actually was. After a moment she rolled her eyes.

"Yes, Max, that would make me happy."

"Would another appletini right now make you happier?"

"Definite yes." He left her alone at the table, staring up at the moon, and came back a few minutes later to find her in exactly the same position. He coughed lightly before sitting back down, getting the barest blink in response before she slowly turned to look at him, catching him in the middle of stealing a sip of her drink. "Hey!"

"If I'm going to make them, I have to know what a well-made one tastes like," he said, and sucked the sugar the rim of the glass left behind off his bottom lip as he pushed the glass across the table to her. Her brows knitted for a moment, smoothing out when he gave her a questioning look. 

"I, uh..." She bit her lip and glanced down at the drink before pushing it back at him. "I don't like it with the sugar."

"Then why did you have the sugar on the ones before this?"

"I don't-- I didn't notice. I just noticed it." Now it was his turn to look puzzled.

"Well, I don't like the drink very much, so if you don't drink it it's just going to be wasted." He pinched the rim of the glass and rubbed the sugar off, popping his fingers into his mouth to clean them off, and pushed it back at her. "There, no problem."

"You--" He couldn't remember the last time he'd seen her look so lost, and he had no idea what was wrong with her. She made a wordless frustrated sound and stood up. "I'll be right back." And then she was gone.

What the hell was that about? She was going to be the death of him-- literally, if generational history cared to repeat itself-- and he was already finding silvered hairs in his brown curls from trying to keep up with her mad genius and volatile temper. He replayed the conversation in his mind to no avail. Did he do something? Was she mad? She hadn't looked mad. She'd looked confused. He felt confused. Not that it was an unusual thing for him to feel around her, but usually he was alone in it.

Kinga came back to the table almost ten minutes later with her chin high, looking steely and unflappable. Anyone else would have bought it, but Max could see the tells: her hairline damp from splashing water on her face, her hands moving restlessly at her sides. "Why are you so nervous?" he asked her bluntly as she sat back down. She arched her brows at him, cool and mocking.

"I'm not nervous, I'm _inspired_ ," she said, reaching for the appletini. 

"Oh. Of course." That was bullshit. When she was inspired, Kinga dropped everything else in order to write down her thoughts, regardless of how intoxicated she was. He'd seen her do it a hundred times before. He knew she had a notebook in her purse, she always did, but she didn't reach for it and she didn't look at him, focused again on the moon. Whatever, it wasn't his place to question her, and if she wasn't looking at him that meant he could look at her without having to defend his expression. "So what are we going to do on the moon?"

"Mm... I don't know where to start. The moon seems like a good place for genetic engineering, right?"

"Uh...? I mean, you won't be breaking any earthly laws by doing it there. But the whole lack of an atmosphere might be a problem."

"What, cosmic rays? No big deal. We can put the majority of the complex underground. Anyways, what's a little radiation to atomic supermen?"

"We're not atomic supermen," Max pointed out, and she waved him off. 

"We'll be _fine_. Don't worry. You always worry so much."

"What do I have to worry about?" he laughed. "It's not like we're doing anything illegal, immoral, or dangerous..."

"...yet," Kinga finished for him, finally looking at him with that manic grin she got so often when she was in mad science mode. He was pretty sure that sharp-edged smile would be the last thing he ever saw. But honestly... he was okay with that, if it turned out to be true.

She finally pulled the notebook out, and he resigned himself to at least another hour sitting here while she scribbled her ideas down, since she wouldn't be interrupted and she couldn't write in a moving vehicle. That gave him time to switch back to soda, at least. He never drank immoderately in public, though he did it a fair bit in the privacy of his own apartment. Getting drunk around Kinga was just a really, really bad idea in so many ways. 

It wasn't exactly lying to pretend he was a lightweight and act more tipsy than he really was. He wasn't doing it to hurt her, he was doing it to protect himself. That made it okay, right? He'd had this argument with himself half a dozen times already. He felt dishonest, but he'd rather feel dishonest and keep his pathetic crush on her secret than let her find out about that particular idiotic move on his part. So far, so good. 

She finished her drink and pushed the empty glass across the table without looking up from the page she was writing. He got her another one, watching her curiously as she lifted it to her lips and unconsciously licked the rim of the glass. She frowned slightly and looked down at the glass, then over at him.

"You said you didn't like it," he said. She arched a brow at him and sipped the drink with no further sign of displeasure, but he caught her sucking the edge of the glass-- just like he'd seen her do with the sugared rims every other time she'd had an appletini with him, which had been a lot. Why'd she lie about it? What had the point been?

Max wondered idly if it was all women who were confusing or if it was just Kinga herself. She'd been getting more erratic as the end of the semester approached and now that it was over he wasn't sure if she'd settle down or just keep getting crazier. One way or another, it wasn't like he was going anywhere-- not without her, at least. To the moon, apparently. The moon might be nice. Cold, probably. Lonely if it was just the two of them. He wasn't sure if the thought of being alone with her on the moon was exciting or terrifying. It would be so much harder to keep his secret under those conditions, but if she wanted to do it, he'd go with her, at her side where he belonged.

"What do you think?" she asked him, and he blinked and twitched away from staring at her a beat before she looked up from the notebook she was showing him.

"Think? What do I think?"

"That's what I asked." She gave him a sardonic look, amused at his flustering. "About the drawing, Max. Not about the deep mysteries of life." He blinked again and looked down at it, brows furrowed for a moment.

"What's that?" he asked, pointing to a plain circle set apart from the sketched-out base.

"That's our idiot trap," she said brightly. "That's how we'll lure some sucker in to shoot up to the Satellite."

"The Satellite?"

"Of Love.... geez, Max, did you pay _any_ attention when I told you to review the old experiments? The place we'll keep the loser we show the movies."

"I thought that crashed?"

"We'll rebuild it," she said with a wave of her hand. "We want brand continuity. I bet we can find those scrap heap robots too. I want things as close to the original conditions as possible. If it was good enough for Dad, it's good enough for me."

He couldn't protest, given that his father's presence had been good enough for Dr. Forrester and she was saying that his was good enough for her, too. "It looks good," he said, and she beamed at him, then yawned suddenly. "Are you done working on it for now?"

"Mm... yeah, for tonight." She tapped her pencil against the notebook a couple of times, looking up at the moon again and back down at him. "Maybe we could see if there are any shitty movies on TV tonight? We have to start building our arsenal."

"Are you saying you want to come home with me?"

"Don't imply something I'm not saying," she said stiffly, and he gave her a questioning look.

"What am I implying?"

"You're-- I'm-- oh, forget it." She shoved her notebook and pencil in her purse and scowled at him. "Yes or no?"

"What's the question?"

"Bad movies?"

"Oh, sure." He felt like he'd scored a point somehow. Not that he was keeping score. Not that she wasn't a few dozen points ahead of him at all times. Not that he minded it. "Come on, then. You can tell me about the moon base while we're in the car." She smiled at him, brief but sincere, and he forced himself not to sigh audibly.

Today she'd stopped being a student. Tomorrow she'd begin her career in mad science in earnest. Tonight... tonight they were going to look on extended cable for terrible movies, and he would bet good money that she'd fall asleep on his shoulder around 2 a.m. He was one hundred percent okay with that.


End file.
